


The heart knows what it wants (but not always what it needs)

by prototyping



Category: Code:Realize ～創世の姫君～ | Code: Realize - Guardian of Rebirth (Visual Novel)
Genre: Blood and Injury, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, delving into those scenes a bit more bc they deserve it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototyping/pseuds/prototyping
Summary: Three times Van Helsing had a brush with death, and three times Cardia considered what it means to die.
Relationships: Cardia Beckford/Abraham Van Helsing
Kudos: 3





	The heart knows what it wants (but not always what it needs)

_“Don’t die, Van Helsing!”_

Her body moved on its own, hands outstretched to catch him as his legs gave out. He fell－Van Helsing, fallen, _impossible_ －but Cardia was there, only barely bracing herself to keep from buckling under his weight. Either he was heavier than he looked, or dread and fear had sapped the strength in her shaking limbs, since she was quickly forced to her knees regardless, working as carefully as she was able to mind his injuries and avoid accidental contact with her skin.

He didn’t struggle when she helped him recline against her chest. His head was limp on her shoulder. As she got a good look at his body, only the sound of his quick, rough breaths convinced her he was still alive.

Up close, she could see he was in an even worse state than she thought. Not even accounting for the gaping hole in his side from Neuntöte’s dying attack, his body was covered in more wounds than she could count. Blood stained his clothes from his collar down to his boots, making it impossible to even hazard a guess. There was so much of it that she marveled at the warmth of his body through their clothes, half-convinced that he had lost too much to be any warmer than a corpse.

_No. No, he’ll be fine. They’ll be here soon. They…_ She tried to recall Victor’s training, but for some reason it was much more difficult than when she had checked on Delly moments ago. Her mind wouldn’t think straight－her fear of losing Van Helsing, of his going away to where she couldn’t follow, had returned with an intensity that made her vision swim and her chest ache like it never had before.

Her grip on his shoulders tightened, as if that would anchor his life in place.

“Don’t die,” she repeated, voice hoarse. His face blurred and she realized she was crying. With a frustrated whimper she turned her head away, fearful of even her tears harming him.

Why… Why was she so useless to him? Even now, she could only tag along and watch as he continued to fight and suffer alone.

So dark and distracting were her thoughts that she nearly missed the light touch on her arm. Van Helsing had managed to grasp her sleeve, weakly, with only a glimpse of color beneath his heavy eyelids to say they had lifted slightly.

“You…” he wheezed, but she couldn’t tell if it was relief or annoyance, an address or a dismissal. His grip tightened briefly, and then a long, slow breath escaped him, a frighteningly _final_ sound. Cardia’s own breath caught for a moment, until common sense kicked back in and she wrapped her fingers around his exposed wrist.

A pulse.

Quick and strong.

The rise and fall of his chest was there, as well. Faint, but _there_. A little bit of the dread clouding her senses dispersed, enough for her to start thinking straight.

Still holding him to her with one hand, she folded the edge of his coat over to press it tight against the wound in his side. A light tremor shook him as he growled low in his throat, but Cardia swallowed her guilt and pressed harder on the makeshift bandage, desperate to staunch the life pouring out of him.

* * *

It was the second time she’d seen him in a bad state.

Again he was soaked in blood with his face a hard mask against the pain, physical and otherwise. Again she couldn’t tell how badly he was injured, uncertain whether the stiffness in his movements and the slight limp in his step came from fresh wounds or the old ones reopening.

He didn’t so much as glance in her direction as he passed. The urge was there to reach out and touch him, but everything about him felt off and Cardia hesitated.

She expected anger, grief—she expected his rage to boil over unchecked now that the initial shock was over, for the mindless fury once directed at Finis to explode even more passionately in Aleister’s direction.

Instead, his face was empty. This wasn’t his usual look of indifference, forced or otherwise, but a complete lack of awareness. Of self. He looked hollow, as though his features had been carved in human likeness by an artist unfamiliar with the concept of emotion.

The usual grace in his movements was also gone. His steps were steady but heavy, his guns hanging by his sides rather than immediately holstered with his typical flair. It was as though the weight of his burdens had taken physical form and now threatened to drag him down.

Van Helsing was alive, but he looked anything but.

* * *

“Would you _rather_ be dead?”

The reluctant question only barely tumbled out of her. Cardia wasn’t sure she wanted to know Van Helsing’s answer—not when that red stain on his shirt was so jarringly bright and his limbs looked too heavy for him to lift. Even now, the sight of him injured, the very idea that he didn’t have a situation completely under control, felt foreign to her, wrong, as if her limited perception of the world had been turned on its head. Seeing him so close to death, attempting to acknowledge how _weak_ he was right now, simply refused to click in her mind. If their skirmish moments ago had been a nightmare, then this was surely the last fading traces of that bad dream, something that surely couldn’t happen for real.

Except her throat still ached from where he had nearly crushed it in his hand. The bruises on her ribs throbbed and she could hear the faint _hiss_ of his blood evaporating as it seeped through her clothes to touch her skin.

It was all very, terrifyingly real.

Van Helsing managed to draw a shaky breath after only a moment’s hesitation.

“...No.” That one word sounded so heavy. He looked the most fragile she’d ever seen him, as if it were a fine line between his staying with her and slipping away to where she could never reach him again. The fear was so visceral that she hesitated to touch him again, wary of hurting him with or without her poison.

His sheepish expression faltered, his eyes gaining clarity as they focused on her more sharply. “For so long… I’ve been hurting you and causing you heartache. I couldn’t just leave you here crying, and take off on my own.”

Something in her chest fluttered, tentatively hopeful.

“...Besides, I haven’t told you the most important thing yet.” His voice sounded stronger, steadier. When he didn’t immediately elaborate, Cardia leaned forward on her knees.

“What’s the most important thing?”

His gaze wandered away from her thoughtfully. “Yes. What was it I was about to tell you earlier…?”

He bridged the gap between them with his hands on her waist. He still had enough strength to pull her to him, however clumsily, and she caught herself on his shoulders to keep from plowing into him completely.

“I will not forget my crimes,” he said softly, solemnly, and Cardia thought it sounded like more than just a statement. It was more like a vow. “But I will never let them drag me down again.” His arms around her tightened, almost imperceptibly. “I want… to be with you.”

His chest was firm and unyielding against hers, his embrace gentle but unrelenting, and she _felt_ the meaning of his words just as clearly as she heard them. He wanted to stay, to let her in—no more pushing her away or leaving her behind.

“I finally… caught up,” she murmured. Calming her fears, she slowly took his face in her hands. He was still warm through her gloves, and solid. He was real. He was alive. For some reason her throat grew thick again and fresh tears blurred her vision. “You were always running from me… It wasn’t fair.”

Van Helsing smiled dryly, a sympathetic look in his eyes. “I know. To make up for everything… let me tell you, again and again.”

Something touched her hair and she flinched, but he held her steady as his fingers carefully combed through the strands between her shoulders. Even with layers of clothing between them, she almost shivered at the way his fingertips grazed down her back.

“Thank you… for coming after me.” His soft, warm smile seemed so out of place there, surrounded by shadows and the heavy smell of blood, but she couldn’t look away from it. This… _This_ was Van Helsing, beneath the layers of misery and bitterness that had gripped him for so long. This was Van Helsing free of the chains of the past, thinking for himself rather than for the dead.

Cardia didn’t know if it was possible to fall in love with someone a second time, but that was the only way to describe what she felt right then.

When he spoke again, his voice was tender and affectionate.

“Cardia… I love you. More than all the hatred and regret I’ve piled up in my heart… I love you.”

He sounded so confident. So straightforward. Her own feelings had been a fumbling mess before, even as she admitted them to him, but his tone and his eye contact brooked no argument or uncertainty. He knew exactly what he felt and what he wanted.

She felt herself break into a smile as a quiet sob escaped her, but there was no mistaking what she felt right then. It was happiness, so acute and overwhelming that it almost hurt as her artificial heart struggled to contain it.

“I love you, too,” she whispered. There was more she wanted to say, that she trusted him to make good on that promise and would reaffirm her own feelings as often as he needed to hear it, but it all caught in her throat as emotion after emotion washed over her. She had never _felt_ so much before—it was new, a little frightening, but a strange sense of contentment came with it all. She wondered if he felt it, too.

Her thumbs swept lightly over his cheeks, wiping away his drying tears even as she felt new ones trickling down her face. As badly as she wanted to lean into him, to touch her forehead to his and feel his warmth directly, she had to refrain. If she was disappointed by that sobering reminder of reality, it was quickly lost beneath the flurry of joy and relief that still buzzed and danced in her veins like a heartbeat might.

Finally, she managed a soft, “I love you so much. I won’t let you go again.”

Van Helsing’s smile broke into a tired grin. He held her tighter still. “See that you don’t.”

Cardia answered with another sob that was part laugh. Carefully, mindful of his wounds and her bare skin, she returned his embrace and pressed as close to him as she could. As new as this closeness was, she immediately decided she couldn’t imagine living with anything less ever again.

He continued stroking her hair, offering as much comfort and affection as he was taking. For a moment it was just them in this silent, empty world and she couldn’t have asked for anything more.

As his warmth continued to cradle her, reassuringly steady, Cardia considered that this was the closest to death she’d seen him come—and yet, it was also the most alive he had ever been in her eyes.


End file.
